DotA Utilities

IceFrog, the main character behind the development of DotA 2 has recently answered some important questions about DotA 2 which were asked by the community. He revealed some major information before the release of the game such as, reconnect feature, replay viewing, lag & delay issue, hardware requirements etc.

DotA 2 Q&A:

Q: Is there reconnect support for DotA 2? (by Vanes-UT)A: This was actually one of the very first things we added early on, before the game was stable, in order to help with testing. You’ll also be able to have a friend of similar skill level substitute for you in case you have to leave. Players that want to improve their reputation in the game and community will also be able to help out by joining ongoing games that are missing players.

Q: Can I still play with my friends from America even though I am European? (by Adam Mosley)A: Yes, a lot of people have friends in different regions and we want to allow them to easily interact. One of the things that makes DotA special is how big the community is, so we will do our best to make it easy to connect and communicate with one another.

Q: How are you going to handle delay and lag between players? (by Alex)A: This is something we are putting a lot of time and resources into. Minimizing delay to servers, along with optimizing networking code, is very important to being able to enjoy DotA on both a casual and competitive level. We’re expanding the Steam infrastructure around the world so the matchmaking service for DotA 2 is able to provide the lowest possible ping wherever you are playing. There will also be some uniquely located servers that are optimized regionally for handling longer distance matches.

Q: What kind of hardware requirements will the game have? (by S.Hong)A: We don’t have an official minimum DotA 2 system specs just yet. The goal is to make sure that people with older computers and the PCs at LAN centers will be able to support the game, while also allowing for newer computers to scale well.

Q: I heard there was going to be an AI feature for when a player leaves. Is there going to be an option to take direct control of the hero? (by Stephen)A: The AI features will be optional to the players in the game. You can have teammates use it, send it to the base, or give it AI modes and behaviors to follow.

Q: Will there be anything like the AI maps in DotA or a “training mode” with difficulty levels? (by L.Pham)A: Yes there will be bot support if you just want to play by yourself, or you can create a party of friends and fill the rest of the slots with bots. There are a variety of different settings you can use in order to configure the bots, ranging from selectable difficulty levels to specific behaviors that you want to practice against. For example, if you want to practice your lane control, you could configure the bots to be stronger at denying, last hitting, and harassing. We’ll also have some specially crafted challenge scenarios, similar to things like Pudge Wars, which I’ll elaborate on in the future.

Q: Will the replay system allow me to move freely backwards and forwards in time rather than having to watch a whole replay? (by Luciando)A: You’ll be able to jump around to any point in the replay, add bookmarks for easy referencing, view detailed stats and graphs while the game is going, and watch through a specific player’s view (with regards to their camera movement). You’ll also be able to watch replays with friends if you want to review a game or learn from your mistakes. To aid videomakers, the replay system will have flexible camera angle and speed controls. There will also be a bunch of commentating and editing features you can add to your replays.

Q: Don’t you think you should make a lot of changes to the gameplay? (by Robert)A: Significant changes would not necessarily make it a better game. There are countless features we are building around the game that will make the experience a much better one. The gameplay itself, though, has always evolved step by step, and it will continue with that methodology. We consider this a long term project, in the same way DotA has always been. We want to provide a quality experience and not just change for the sake of change. You’ll naturally see additions and improvements to the game as time passes, but it would be a natural progression aimed at improving the game for the players and not for other arbitrary reasons. Valve and I strongly believe that the player focused development process the game has gone through is what will allow us to continue making the best decisions with regards to where we spend our development time.

Q: Can you spectate an already ongoing DotA 2 game? (by Valo)A: A lot of the game will be built around spectating and shoutcasting support. You will be able to join most ongoing games (unless the players marked it as private) and just watch them. You can join a game your friend is in, see what your favorite clan is doing, or simply pick a skill level and a hero you like and it will find you one to watch. We also have a system in place that automatically distributes the load to multiple servers so that the game itself won’t be affected by users joining to spectate. Our distribution network will allow us to support any number of users that want to watch, by dynamically assigning more servers to the task. There will also be special tags and search options to help you find live or old shoutcasted games. Shoutcasters will be able to operate as directors, so anyone watching will have his camera looking at the same things the shoutcaster is viewing. There is also an optional anti-cheat mechanism built in so that the game you are spectating can be time delayed by any amount of time to reduce potential abuse.

Q: Will you keep loyal to casting times like Torrent and will it still be possible to do the advanced tricks, like animation canceling, fog of war tricks we’ve learned, etc? (by Lycan)A: Yes, those mechanics are implemented. They are a very integral part of the game and it wouldn’t feel the same without them.

Q: How will we manage replay files? (by Nikos)A: They will be automatically saved with your identity online utilizing the Steam Cloud storage system, so you don’t have to worry about losing them. You’ll be able to use the replay browser tools to search, sort, tag, rank, and favorite them.

Q: Are you going to work on DotA after DotA 2 is released? (by Jack Lee)A: I plan to keep DotA updated for as long as the community wants. That being said though, I think that DotA 2 represents the long term future for the game.

Q: How will development change with regards to your role, current beta testers, community feedback, etc? (by Basel)A: All that stuff will remain the same, except that now I also get to work with the developers at Valve. All of our current playtesters and even contributors like Kunkka are helping. One of the most important things for me has always been getting input from the community. There will be a lot of opportunities, throughout the next year, to give your feedback on all the things we are working on, ranging from features to visuals.

Q: Are the upgraded graphics going to be distracting? New graphics are great, but when there’s too much, you can’t see what’s going on anymore. (by Lycan)A: Gameplay is definitely the most important aspect, everyone on the team understands this concern. The number one priority is making sure players can quickly and easily tell what’s happening on the screen at all times. Fine tuning the right visual balance with each ability, effect, hero, etc., will be an ongoing process as the game is playtested and we get your feedback. A clean and understandable visual representation of the action is important to everyone from experienced players, spectators, to new players.

Q: Will I be able to help test DotA 2? (by Sing Liu)A: There will certainly be an opportunity to get involved with beta testing DotA 2 and help us with your feedback. We’ll release more information about how to sign up in the future.

Q: Are you going to do anything to make it easier for new players to get into the game and feel welcome? (by Arvin)A: Some of what makes it hard, in current DotA, stems from the lack of services around the game that can help foster a better relationship between players and that it’s hard for players to be matched up with equally skilled allies and opponents. Things like tutorials, matchmaking, AI bots, identity, coaching, and community contribution will go a long way to making it easier for new players to fit in.

Q: What hotkey setup will exist in DotA 2? (by Stany Kaff)A: We have a few default templates that cover the most popular configurations, but you’ll also be able to fully customize them to your liking. You can customize it on a global level or on a per hero basis if you choose. The hotkey configuration will include everything, not just heroes and items, but also how you navigate in the game, control the camera, autocast, set control groups, etc. Your settings are saved to your identity online, so if you go to a LAN center you will not have to reconfigure your keys.

I hope Q&A session will give you a clear picture of the upcoming DotA 2 game in your mind. More information & news about DotA 2 will be available here, stay tuned for the latest updates!

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Comments yet..:

Wohooo..... "I plan to keep DotA updated for as long as the community wants. That being said though, I think that DotA 2 represents the long term future for the game".This thing make me feel that i am top of this world

I'm pretty sure Icefrog knows what hes doing and he will make it user friendly on the whole "is it free thing" I'm pretty sure it won't be because valve likes money and also if its a monthly like WoW I'm not even gonna bother trying it

low-end pc doesn't meet the minimum system requirements. DoTA on warcraft is better :) low system requirements. and almost all of us are familiar on the old DoTA . i hope icefrog will still update the DoTA maps for warcraft. nothing beats the basics

If icefrog thinks that valve can earn via their STEAM thing...its their mistake! The will only cause the dota players to be split apart in different other games! Seems dota is dying atlast ....HON has very same features except icefrog aint in it...whats the difference? how many people pplay HON and how many dota on lan ? judge urself!

Minimum requirements are not yet revealed by Valve and I think they're too high for an RTS Source-Engine game, I'm pretty sure they want to get gamers play it at lowest requirements as possible

and ABOUT PAYING, THE GAME IS FCKING FREE ONCE YOU BUY IT! EVERY VALVE GAME IS FREE ONCE YOU BUY IT. LIKE TEAM FORTRESS 2 AND L4D2, THEY ARE MOSTLY USED AS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE BUT IT'S FREE, EVEN THE DLCs ARE DAMN FREE. STUPID PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THAT VALVE IS ACTUALLY A GOOD GAME COMPANY

Naaa,ice frog and valve wont listen to us to make this dota 2 a Free2Play game. They spend lots of money to create this game,thats why they wont make this game free 2 Play. i think ill just stick to the original dota rather than this dota 2. We love dota but if dota will be remove at War Craft because of this dota 2,ill never gonna play this game again. War Craft III is the home of the dota,not this one. They are just seperating players. If we need to pay for this game,it will be like HON. players will be seperated again and dota community will fall. Poor thing you created this game. But still,we understand that you need to earn some money to. So just pls dont remove the original DotA All Stars at War Craft III of Blizzard. I hope dota community will not fall because of the release of dota 2 cause another game will make dota players to be seperated. Like now,i think ice frog is to busy on dota 2 thats why it takes a long time to release a new map of Dota all stars.

Another thing,IF ICE FROG GONNA MAKE A BALANCE GAME LIKE DOTA,PLEASE DO NOT RELEASE GARENA HACKS AND MAP HACKS TO MAKE IT IMBALANCE,DOTA UTILITIES DISAPOINTED PLAYERS BECAUSE OF RELEASING HACKS. WHY WOULD WE PLAY DOTA IF THERES A CHEAT?. ARENT YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS?. THIS IS A SITE THAT SUPPORTS DOTA,NOT A SITE THAT MAKE DOTA COMMUNITY FALL. PLAYERS ARE GETTING TIRED TO PLAY DOTA BECAUSE OF THOSE GARENA HACK. PLS DONT RELEASE GARENA HACKS AND MAP HACKS ON THIS SITE OR DOTA COMMUNITY SOON WILL FALL CAUSE DOTA 2 IS NOT FREE TO PLAY AND THE ARE HACKS ON DOTA ALL STARS. I DO NOT MIND IF MY OPPONENT IN A GAME IS A CHEATER BUT IM JUST CONCERNED THAT DOTA WILL BE AN EPIC FAIL IF YOU CONTINUE TO RELEASE HACKS. ASK OTHER PLAYERS. THEY WOULD SAY THE SAME THING. DO NOT SUPPORT THOSE HACKS OR THE COMMUNITY WILL FALL.

It will have a one time price. Valve would never make a pay2play game.I can't believe that there are people who think it might be free. Look at the features. Think of the resources. How in the world could it be free?

Pay once, play forever. Just like the old DotA. Pay for WC3, pay for Frozen throne, play it for free.

Stupid guys,before you insult us,try to understand what we are talking aboout. what we are saying that pay 2 play is if we need to pay for the account that will be used un WAN games,not in LAN game,tsk2.

I think it will not be for free on it's release, It will be free after about 2 to 3 yrs after it released, after they retrieve what they invested...Valve hired many people(and of course invested tons of money) just to please the DOTA community (create a free LAN game)?????? knock!knock!helloooooooo????!! pwd b un??? that's extremely Illogical!!!! Valve is a gaming Corporation!! of course they treat DOTA as a business( a tool to make money) not a game!!! they are businessmans!!!not a Drama Queens who gives everything for free!!

To all the people who said it's supposed to be free to play...you will have to pay for the game then the rest is free.. if you said dota is free.. the map is free but warcraft reign of chaos and frozen throne aren't you must pay for it.. so basically it will be the same BUT if you used a pirated version of warcraft 3 go fuck your self get a fucking job

sounds awesome indeed, but dota developers waited long just to copy other's idea- although some of them copied the style of dota.. the thing is.. dota 2 is league of legends. . League Of Legends annihilated dota!!! then dota release its new version copying the features of league of legends.. wtf! wcg 2010 has no dota tournament? replaced by LOL :[.

Nice... Dota on my favourite game platform (Steam)(Note: Valve Games are all on steam). Epic awesomeness. Now I can expect more Team fortress 2 hat with dota 2 purchase and a great game of dota 2 itself. For those who do not know where to get dota 2 when it is released, dota 2 is most likely officially released on steam.

people worked hard hundreds of hours and you want to repay them by giving nothing ....free game ? i hope your daddy wiil come home without his paycheck, becouse some client of his cosider that his work should be free.

i will buy witchever comes cheaper hon or dota2 , but definatly i will BUY something.

people worked hard hundreds of hours and you want to repay them by giving nothing ....free game ? i hope your daddy will come home without his paycheck, because some client of his consider that his work should be free.

i will buy whichever comes cheaper hon or dota2 , but definitely i will BUY something.

Dota 2 is not free, u had to buy it..(unless illegally dl ofcourse) it will be suck if we had to pay monthly fees just to play on LAN, i mean, whats dota without online match? Dota 2 MUST BE A (PAY ONCE/FREE FOREVER EVEN IN LAN TOOOO! And Icefrog make huge mistake by choosing greedy Valve, they r good but they just greedy..@hd_twu

To all you whiney babies complainig about paying for a game years in development....get off your self entitled rushes and go get a job so you can pay the $30(most likely price) for the game without having to dip into your coin jar. Lol DOTA 2 will not be a paytoplay game...so stop saying it will be. They will use a system similar to the goblin coins in HON to make money. They are obviously not epically retarded.and they DO realize that a paytoplay platform will make them lose most players...until prices are confirmed stop bithingg about a hypothetical price tag

<> I'd rather play on DotA than DotA 2, I prefer the originals and I hope many of us still do too.

Of course not!! we can spend our hole life with playing old games and never going a step forward, or we just realize that it's necessary to switch to more modern games from time to time. I will play dota 2 and rly can't wait for this game.

Will you keep loyal to casting times like Torrent and will it still be possible to do the advanced tricks, like animation canceling, fog of war TRICKS we’ve learned, etc? (by Lycan)

A: Yes, those mechanics are implemented. They are a very integral part of the game and it wouldn’t feel the same without them.

WTF fog of war mechanics will not be changed ? so if hero that i attack goes to fog my hero turns back where he came and not to hero last position ??? wtf... and i thought its just a bug in wc3 engine... but this makes me ANGRYYY

Hi,So some changes of profiles and names and more graphics in HON will make you pay for it because it's online, and some changes in graphics will make you pay in DOTA2 are you kidding me? the native players don't pay for it's own game yeah it's not for you ICEFROG it's for the natives, the great players don't pay for their great play, if every moment they think of the DOTA then every moment will get paid??

ARE U GUYS STUPID?? they will prob be like HoN or LoL are doing which they give u the option to support them via a shop after u buy the game. this game has a probability of 85% of being free to play after buying it and if u havent seen in LoL they been releasing a heroe every 15 days so it means the fear DotA2 and most of the hardcore players likes dota and will move to dota 2 and rememmber something,dota is Player hosting system while dota2 will be a Server hosting system so pls buy the game atleast dont hack it since the game will be better than LoL,HoN combined. HoN is to inbalanced and LoL is to casual for me its sseems more like playing toon town than actually playing dota genre and its to cartonish for my taste

And for everyone's information steam accounts are free.Dota 2 will most likely be a purchase not a subscription.Stop worrying about monthly subscriptions. With the original Dota, HoN, and LoL out there it would be foolish to try and force a subscription on the community.

@all Valve never release games with subscriptions. It's going to be p2p as this game is going to be a high quality one. You can't have The Starry Night painted by Van Gogh free, but you can have it for free painted by your friend... right? People who don't buy it will be disrespecting Icefrog and all his work on Dota 1. It will be a great game and it will be worth paying for it.

@"ARE U GUYS STUPID??" 8:26First of all it will have VAC... You sound like a retard who has no knowledge of hacking. HoN is balanced, LoL is for kids, DotA has lame heroes thus leading to imbalanced gameplay. You can't have a hero with 3 passives and 1 super simple spells and a guy with 4 castables and very complex spells. Skeleton king, Drow ranger... All passives. Lame! All who say HoN is imbalanced are prolly noobs getting owned cuz there's no dota imba heroes.Btw, I'm the above poster.

love playing dota 2... after valve had confirmed it to be Free to Play and will support LAN and MODS it was DotA fanboy madness all over again. COMPLETELY FREE TO PLAY! FOREVER! though we will have to wait for the whole game to be done and Valve to finish and fine-tune LAN mode, I've been having a blast out of playing DotA 2, even the Bots, the AI are awesome, they use combos and synergies, and even place wards, respond to pings and commands and rotate lanes/call miss... it's like playing with other people, only not selfish people. XD